“Vodka and Coke,” I murmur.
I hear Emily say something from the living room, and when I glance over my shoulder I find her talking to Tyler. His eyes are trained on her as they head over to the bedroom doors, and just before Emily disappears into Snake’s room and Tyler disappears into his, they laugh at something.
I shift my eyes back to Snake. “Make it a double.”
Everyone’s here by nine. The girls from apartment 1201 are the first to arrive and they’re not as wild as I expected them to be. They’re slightly apprehensive and I think it might be because Emily and I are here. They do introduce themselves, though, after five minutes. Natalie is the tallest of the three, with silky black hair that reaches her hips, and then there’s Zoe, who wears huge round-framed glasses that totally suit her. Ashley is the shortest of the three and definitely the loudest of them all. The first thing she asks Snake is if there are going to be body shots later.
Two guys turn up from an apartment three floors below, and it takes me a good hour before I finally figure out what their names are. The blond is Brendon. The auburn is Alex. Tyler talks to them more than he talks to the girls from apartment 1201, so I eventually decide that I like them both.
Emily ends up inviting a friend of hers last-minute, and so some quiet girl named Skye appears at the door by herself, and I quickly realize that I’m glad she’s here. She keeps Emily occupied, which in my eyes means keeping her away from Tyler.
The last to arrive is Zoe’s boyfriend, some guy with blue hair who’s already wasted before he even steps foot over the threshold.
I’m in no position to pass judgment, however, as I’m way over the tipsy borderline. I think as the night is going on Snake seems to be making my drinks a lot stronger than I’m requesting, but I’m too busy watching Tyler to argue about it, so I drink them anyway. It’s most likely the reason why, only an hour into the party, I’m already dancing with the 1201 girls. There’s a lot of jumping and some occasional screams, and I’m not quite sure what kind of dancing I’ve been thrown into, but with the lights dimmed I feel relaxed, like no one can even see me. I’m so relaxed that I keep on drinking, keep on asking Snake for more, keep on tossing empty cups onto the worktops. I might be used to all of this by now, given Rachael’s guidance over the past couple years, but when it comes to my body handling such excessive consumption there’s still no improvement. I’m as much a lightweight as she is.
It’s after eleven when my head starts to pound. I try to convince myself that it’s the excessive music volume causing it, but I know I’m lying to myself, so I take a timeout. I drop down on the coach, slump against the back of it, and close my eyes for ten minutes. I think in retrospect it’s quite possibly the worst thing I can do, for when I stand again, everything hits me at once. I immediately topple to one side and the only thing that stops me from falling straight into the TV is Emily’s friend Skye, who grabs me, steadies me, and rolls her eyes at me. I find it worrying how distorted my vision seems to have gotten, because even quiet Skye looks odd as I stare back at her.
“Are you okay?” she asks. She looks as sober as a stick in comparison.
“Yeah! Yeah!” I know I’m not, but I don’t particularly want to talk to her, so I draw her into a brief hug for some unknown reason before swiveling around rather shakily and stalking off.
I spot Tyler in the kitchen, mixing drinks. He seems to have taken over Snake’s mixed role of bartender/DJ for a minute, so I decide to join him. He doesn’t look too drunk, if at all, and he’s biting his lip as he studies the drink he’s making.
“Hey,” I say. It could be slurred, but I’m not quite sure. Messily, I clear a spot on the worktop and push myself up. It’s a lot harder than usual, like my wrists are broken, but I finally get up after a moment of struggling. Once I’m perched, I cross one leg over the other and gently swing my feet. “Hey,” I say again.
“I think you should stop drinking now,” he murmurs, but he doesn’t even glance up. He reaches for an almost-empty bottle of vodka and tips the remainder of it into the drink. I’m not sure if it’s for him or someone else, but he definitely seems more interested in it than he is in me.